Rhode Island almost saw another company leave the state because of its scarce industrial sites.
After considering locations outside Rhode Island, a Lincoln-based distributor for Reeb Millwork Corp. late last month purchased a site in Smithfield where it plans to build a new facility.
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Construction begins this year on the 140,000-square-foot facility, located at the Smithfield Business Park at 295 off Route 116. The facility will house the company’s 75 employees currently working in an outdated building in Lincoln, said Bernard F. Hannon, an operations manager for Reeb.
Headquartered in Bethlehem, Pa., Reeb purchased the Lincoln business, formerly Brodeur Window Distributors, in November 2004, Hannon said. Operating in the state since 1902, the former Brodeur business distributes windows and doors to retailers all over New England.
“It was a Rhode Island company and we wanted to keep it in Rhode Island,” said Hannon, who noted that the company had looked out of state after having difficulty securing a site here.
The project comes as the state struggles to provide businesses like Reeb industrial sites to expand on, and after some companies moved to southern Massachusetts or elsewhere due to the shortage.
The state lost Spherics Inc., a biotechnology firm spun off from research at Brown University, which moved last year from Lincoln to Mansfield, Mass., in part because the state lacked a suitable site for the young company to expand.
The Smithfield Business Park, Reeb’s future home, is just one of a few development-ready industrial sites in the state. Others, said to be filling up quickly, are Quonset Point in North Kingstown and the Highland Industrial Park in Woonsocket and Cumberland.
“[The Reeb project] is a big deal,” said Charles T. Francis, president of CB Richard Ellis in Providence, who brokered the land sale for owner PM Smithfield LLC. “It’s a big deal because it’s new industrial construction, which is rare in this state.”
J. Ralph McGonicle, a representative of PM Smithfield, said his group purchased the Smithfield land for industrial development in late 2002. Developer Marshall Properties, which has an interest in PM Smithfield, has linked the roughly 75-acre property to public utilities and access roads.
Companies want development-ready, or “pad-ready,” sites for building because they don’t like to spend the time and money to prepare land for construction. Therefore, the pad-ready sites at the Smithfield industrial park are a hot commodity.
Building company Di Gregorio Corp. bought two lots in the park, and began moving into a new operations facility it built on one of them last week, McGonicle said. Another facility on a third site is under construction for Verizon Communications. With Reeb purchasing a fourth site, and with two under negotiation, McGonicle expects the remaining two lots to sell within months.
Hannon said that Reeb purchased the 15 acres at the business park because of its access to Interstate 295 and proximity to routes 95 and 495. The site is also six miles from the company’s current building at 41 Walker St., he added, and it provides room for future expansion.
The new facility will have 24-foot ceiling clearance, Hannon said, adding that the business’s existing building has lower ceilings on three floors. He said having operations on a single floor would be less labor-intensive, yet the company plans to hire an unspecified number of workers after it moves to the new building.
Reeb has hired Riggs & Gallagher Inc., of Cranston, as general contractor for the new facility, which will consist of 15,000 square feet of office and showroom space and 125,000 square feet for assembly and distribution operations. Hannon declined to disclose the cost of the project or the amount spent on the land.
The operations manager said Reeb plans to move into the new building by this time next year.
